


The Haze

by antivalentine



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Amnesia, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-10
Updated: 2009-02-10
Packaged: 2018-04-23 00:19:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4856090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antivalentine/pseuds/antivalentine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young woman in Cardiff has amnesia, but is she who her doctor boyfriend says she is?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Haze

That autumn, they seemed to be tearing half of Cardiff down. One week, there'd be a row of shops -- the next, they'd be hidden behind hoardings -- and the next, you'd look up and see an expanse of blank, colourless sky where buildings used to be. The streets were a maze of wire fences and orders to use the other side of the road.  
  
Whatever she'd done to end up here, it must have been bad.  
  
Her boyfriend -- a doctor, so he knows about these things -- says her type of amnesia is commoner than people think. Her long-term memory: basically shot. But there are no issues with her short-term memory, or events since the accident. She functions well enough at work, but then you could train a monkey to perform the dreary stuff she does.  
  
She is in Caffe Nero, of all places, having a cappuccino with her boyfriend, when a stranger does a double take and says 'I'm sorry, but your face looks ever so familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?'  
  
This doesn't happen as often as you might expect, given the amnesia -- she's not, after all, in her hometown, which apparently is somewhere in Surrey -- and she is opening her mouth to explain that yes, maybe she does, but she was in a pretty bad car accident a few months ago  
and everything before that is a void, when the woman claps her own forehead in recognition.  
  
'No! I know what it is. You're the spit of that poor Mrs. Saxon.' She must look blank, because she presses on. 'You know, Mr. Saxon's wife. The one who got killed along with the president. Round the eyes, it is. You must get people telling you that all the time.'  
  
'Not really, no' she says, politely.  
  
'OK, well, I'm ever so sorry to have disturbed you.'  
  
She looks across at Owen. The expression on his face is unreadable. 'What's the matter?' she says.  
  
'Batty old woman, hassling random people in coffee shops...'  
  
'She wasn't hassling me. She just thought I looked like someone famous.'  
  
'Someone _dead_ and famous. Nutter.' He gulps down his coffee. 'Let's go.'  
  
'We've only just sat down. I'm fine. Don't worry.'  
  
'I'm not worried. I just think there are better ways to spend our time.' He grins wickedly and entwines his fingers in hers.  
  
_Fool_. The word flashes into her head from nowhere. The rush of contempt which overwhelms her is from nowhere. And it vanishes, just as quickly. What is wrong with her? He's her boyfriend. He's a doctor, charming, intelligent, and she's just a little office drone with a broken brain.  
  
She makes up for this temporary apostasy by not arguing anymore, by being even more pliable than usual. Maybe this time he'll unfreeze her, break through the wall that sits between her and the rest of the world. Maybe this time when she comes she'll mean it; the wall will shatter and she will no longer be a numb, smiling automaton.  
  
But not this time. She wraps herself in his duvet and stares out at the lights of the bay, dissolving in dark water. Nothing. She feels nothing. She listens to the faint waterfall of the shower. He'll probably want to go out to eat, but she really isn't hungry. Nonetheless, she'll order a curry that burns her mouth to numbness. Anything to feel something.  
  
It's then she first hears the noise. The upstairs neighbours putting up pictures. Or the pipes, gurgling in protest at the length of his shower. It's like a distant heartbeat. It's like something alive, on the other side of the wall.  
  


* * *

In the office the next day, the first sip of coffee reminds her of the encounter in Caffe Nero. Idly, she bangs the name into Google. Mrs Saxon.

She nearly spills her coffee.

The woman has -- or had, rather -- as near as damnit, her face. They're not identical, of course. Even when you set aside the hair and clothes, the nose is different, the lips less full. But it's no wonder that stranger mistook her. Like she said, it's round the eyes. They could be sisters. They could be twins.

All this happened round about the time of the accident, so she's hazy on the details. Google fills them in. Lucy Saxon was married to a lunatic, a mass hypnotist, who brainwashed the British public into electing him prime minister before staging a bloodbath. The President of the US was assassinated, naturally Harold Saxon was shot in pretty short order after that, and Lucy Saxon was just one of a number caught in the crossfire. And it must all have been very shocking at the time; but by now the dead have been buried, the business empire carved up, power reallocated and the world, after a momentary gasp, is going on much the same way as it always did.

Owen says her feelings of numbness, of being apart from the world, are just natural symptoms of shock. He says post-traumatic stress is very common in the aftermath of a serious accident like hers. She's lost her memory, she could have lost her life. It would, he says, be abnormal if she _wasn't_ depressed and confused.

She looks into the eyes of the dead woman. It's like looking into a mirror. Did she love her monstrous husband, or was she just brainwashed? The word makes her think of a giant sponge sliding down a blackboard, polishing the surface to a shiny obsidian where nothing sticks. Brainwashed. Like her.

* * *

The noise is almost constant now, dinning in her ears. Owen says that tinnitus is a frequent side-effect of major head injuries. Not another thing, she thinks. It might as well have just finished me off.

Sometimes, it gets so she cannot hear him speak. He is opening and closing his mouth like a fish and all she can hear is pounding.

'I'm thinking of going blonde' she says.

'What for? I love your hair.' He smooths it with the back of his hand. 'Blonde's so cheap-looking. Next you'll be telling me you want to be orange and getting me to buy you gold jewellery from Argos...'

'But my roots are coming through quite fair. I just don't think black's my colour.'

'Yeah, but do any girls have their natural colour?' He winks. 'Let's try and work out what yours is...'

She's noticed this. When she talks about change. When she talks about what things might have been like before. It's as if he can't deal with it, and he has to distract her with sex. Like he can't handle the idea she ever had a life before him. And how old is she? She must be thirty at least, and she can't have been living in a cupboard all those years. There must have been boyfriends. Not to mention a family, friends, a job...

But nobody from that life has ever claimed her. Sometimes she looks out across the dark water and wonders what kind of person she must have been to shake them off so easily.

* * *

One night, one such night as Owen is showering and she is gazing blankly at the lights dissolving, the intercom buzzes.

'Owen? It's Jack.'

It sounds urgent, so she presses the button without question, pulls his dressing gown tight around her and goes to let him in. The stranger starts banging on the door before she has time to get there.

She opens the door and he pushes past her, yelling 'Owen!'

Owen appears behind her, towel-clad and dripping. 'Is this a social call?'

'What did you do with that fluxion plasma modulator?' he demands. He's American, not bad-looking either, despite the manners.

'It's in my briefcase, I was going to take a look at it...'

'Get it, get some clothes on, and come with me now.' The man looks at her and does a double-take, like that woman in the cafe. 'Oh Jesus, Owen, don't tell me you're sleeping with _her_.'

'Do you mind?' she says, cut-glass, this particular rudeness too blatant to let slide.

'Sorry,' he says swiftly. 'Nothing personal, I promise you. OWEN!'

'OK, OK' Owen, in tracksuit bottoms, hopping down the hall as he pulls on his trainers. He grabs the briefcase and says 'Sorry babe, it's work.'

The American rolls his eyes. 'Let's go. Don't think you're not in trouble.'

He didn't tell her to wait, but he didn't tell her not to, either. She goes back to bed.

Noises in the next room wake her. That American's voice. She can hear the clink of glasses above the familiar drumming in her ears. His voice is loud, it carries.

'She's not living here?'

'Oh God no, it's casual.'

'So you're just thinking with your dick as usual. Tell me, Owen, have you ever heard of the word "ethics"? I hear some of your medical colleagues are quite keen on it.'

'Oh, leave me alone. It's the only way to keep an eye on her. If you've got a better cover story for me, I'd love to hear it.'

'You don't need a cover story. How is she supposed to return to normal life with us hanging around?'

'She was recognised the other day. Even with the hair, even with the surgery, even with being in fucking _Cardiff_ , she was recognised.'

'So where are the headlines saying Lucy Saxon lives? Nowhere. There's more evidence for the continuing survival of Elvis.'

'It's not a joke, it's a matter of time. I'm telling you, Jack, she needs watching. There's something not right about her. Sometimes, I'll be talking to her and it's like she's not even in the same room. There's a blankness there.'

'Of course there is. Wiping out someone's entire life is a pretty heavy thing to do to their mind, you know it can take months to recover fully...'

'I think she's dangerous.'

'Now, listen to me. If I thought that woman was dangerous, she'd be working for us. But I lived a year on the same ship as her and the only dangerous thing she did was shoot somebody who really, really deserved it. You know that blankness? It's not evil, it's vacancy. The lights are on, but there's no-one home. She was like that before she was retconned. If anything, it's an encouraging sign.'

'Doesn't it occur to you,' says Owen, 'that there would have to be something wrong with her for the Master to have chosen her?'

'Amorality is not the same as immorality. But I wouldn't expect you to understand that.'

She backs away from the door. The thrumming has intensified, her head throbs, everything around her lurches crazily. She can't stay upright, she can't keep her eyes open. It feels like there is something inside her skull fighting to get out, and she can't even begin to process everything she's just heard. She stumbles back into bed while the drums beat, beat, beat, and passes out.

* * *

When she wakes, it's still dark, though the sky is the dark blue that comes before dawn rather than the dusty orange-black of midnight. Owen is sleeping next to her, snoring gently -- less snoring, really, than amplified breathing -- and the drums are still there, but she doesn't mind them right now. They are steady, constant, like a metronome regulating the progress of her thoughts.

Her head has been a tangled mess for as long as she can remember. Which, admittedly, isn't very long. But this one thing is clear, solid, shining. She's not Catherine Jones, girl with amnesia, an admin job and a doctor boyfriend. He's not even her boyfriend; he's her self-appointed guardian who thought he'd shag her as a perk of the job.

Well, not anymore. He thinks she's dangerous? She'll show him dangerous.

First, though, she needs to establish exactly how dangerous she is.

**Author's Note:**

> In addition to referring to Catherine | Lucy's 'pretty heavy' retcon the title is a pun on [The Hayes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hayes), which was undergoing major reconstruction in 2007-8. The plan was to have the resurrected Master set up a lair in a hole in the ground, and Team Torchwood were going to be required to save the world (again), but since the plan really didn't get any more specific than that I never quite got around to writing it. 
> 
> And then of course the whole thing got AU'd to hell and the hole in the ground got filled up by John Lewis.
> 
> (The Caffe Nero, incidentally, isn't on The Hayes proper but on St John Street, opposite Burger King.)


End file.
